1) The timing for the draft of 1v1 PL IV has been decided. It will be held on February 15th, 2020 to best accommodate managers.
You might be saying, "hey, isn't that before player signups end?" and to that, I say yes. But since it is the best date for all managers to be here, I think forgoing 4 days of player signups is worth having a good draft, so...
2) Player signups will now be ending on Friday, February 14th at 10 PM EST in order to accommodate the draft.

Re: Weekly Deadlines
In order to be more "formal" and line up better with other deadlines and whatnot, weekly deadlines are being changed from Mondays at 12 pm EST to Sunday at 11:59 pm EST. Managers, please have lineups in for the next week before then.

Just some reminders for when you're playing this PL:
1) We are enforcing force timer ON during this series (unless agreed upon by the players). This is so that we aren't ending up with hour-long sets just to play three games. This also means that between matches there is a maximum of 10 minutes, unless agreed upon by the players.
2) One way to stay with the forced on timer is by playing on smogtours. We heavily encourage playing on smogtours as it is a very tour friendly environment and there is unlikely to be any sort of external interference with the games, especially in terms of accidental ghosting.
3) Using a proxy while playing is not allowed. This is to prevent any potential playing on other people's accounts and to defer any malicious activity. If you ABSOLUTELY need to have a proxy on and can not play against your opponent at any time without a proxy, come talk to me. We can figure something out.

In this video, it can be seen that blunder and CTC are in a call while blunder is playing his tournament set. There is blatant ghosting involved with telling what moves to pick, what beats what, etc. despite the fact that blunder says multiple times "do not tell me what to do." This is egregious behavior and should not be repeated, and both blunder and CTC will be punished with 1 year 1v1 tourbans for ghosting. The tourban will be 1 year but both may participate in 1v1 PL next year. This decision has been approved by a TD.

Rosa The Teatime Terrors may now select a player from the remaining pool in order to stay at the minimum of 10 players.

RE: Speculation in chat during games
Can't be a 1v1 tournament without some set speculation. During multiple games so far during this tournament, there have been instances where users who are not players have speculated the sets that were brought to games. This is behavior that we do not condone and is unacceptable for the tournament environment.

This post is a formal warning against set speculation. PLEASE DO NOT SPECULATE ANY SETS THAT HAVE BEEN BROUGHT TO A GAME. Even if it is a joke, if the speculation has a possibility of being legitimate, it should not be done. If you need examples, here you go.

It is still rather early in the tournament and we have decided that we would not like to be as harsh so early. Thus, we will be issuing a formal warning to XSTATIC COLD for his behavior during this game where they speculated Gunk Shot being a move on Donphan before it was revealed. This behavior is not allowed and we hope will not continue.

During both of these games it can be seen that maxy1991991 speculated sets. During the first, it was speculation of Sawk not having Close Combat and revealing ExplodingDonkey's set. During the second game it can be seen that maxy speculated that Nalei was scarfed. Both of these instances are set speculation and are not allowed. Due to set speculation being a repeated offense by maxy, we will be issuing a 4 month tournament ban from 1v1 and will be removed from 1v1 PLIV. However, the Mighty Morphin' Morpekos will be allowed to pick a replacement player from the remaining pool of users that went undrafted.

TLDR: stop set speculating, xsc especially, maxy is given a 4 month tournament ban, and morpekos get a replacement. Set speculation and leaking will be punished harder from here on out after this formal warning.

These punishments overrule any previous decisions on any of the subjects previously mentioned.

Imasugu

Freddy Kyogre unilaterally disclosed a person being investigated that not only were they being looked at, but also the specific PS staff members who were reviewing what was going on. The investigation wasn't over, and the data wasn't finished being collected, and thus no decision had been made as to whether or not the person did anything wrong when Freddy contacted them. A co-host was expected to hold confidential and time-sensitive information accountable.

Before this event, Freddy Kyogre allowed ggopw, a blacklisted user, to take part in the PL IV player draft, allowing him to evade his blacklist, on the false assumption that he had been given permission to do so, when he had not.

AAAAAAA

After looking back on this decision with the new host in place, I have decided to look further into the matter and reevaluate whether or not the punishment was warranted.

The initial decision was flawed on account of the fact that there was no warning given out to maxy for the first case of speculation as shown in this game from week 1 from either the tournament directors, tournament hosts, or general community. The next case of his speculation as shown in this game from week 2 was at least covered by Boat (phiwings99) correcting maxy and showing him the tournament guidelines and its outlining of what speculation is and the fact that it is against the rules. With no warning being given out prior to the offense that got him banned, I believe that the case from week 1 should effectively be considered null, since it makes no sense to ban now for what should've been a warning weeks ago. After Boat handling the case from week 2, if there were another case of maxy speculating, then discipline would have been warranted; but another case never came.

Result:maxy1991991's tourban will be undone and his placement on the Mighty Morphin' Morpekos will be reinstated. Since this was a member of their team, both Alakazam and Boat (phiwings99) recused themselves from involvement with this decision. Despite the fact that this decision is being overturned, quakins shall continue to be a player on the team, since the fault is not on him for this mistake, nor has he done nothing wrong to warrant removal.

With this decision comes the clarification that tournament hosts are not responsible for dealing out tournament bans. A tournament host's job is to make decisions within the scope of the given tournament they are hosting, not future tournaments that they may not have administrative control over. The team of 1v1 tournament directors (myself, Alakazam, and Boat (phiwings99)) are in charge of handling discipline external to a given tournament.

Minimum Activity Expected of Players: Being picked for a team tournament also means we expect a minimum level of commitment to that team, regardless of whether a player is starting or not. If a manager finds that their player is not showing acceptable levels of activity, and after attempting to work things out with the player themselves, they may get in contact with the TD team about it. A player whose activity we find to be below this threshold will be infracted with Unsportsmanlike Conduct, a DQ from this edition of the Tournament in question and a ban from the next edition of this same tournament.

Imasugu

RE: Substitute selection for Dragapults
Quaritchz of the Dragapults has been banned from smogon, and thus cannot participate in this tournament. The Drive-by Dragapults ave chosen WilliamTheo13 as their replacement player. They will be able to play starting in week 7.

Why'd you leave the keys upon the table

Situation: BSU left the Mega Ray's discord without warning two weeks ago, and without contacting his managers with any kind of explanation, either then or afterwards.

Result: blondesasukeuchiha will be removed from 1v1 PL IV and be given an Unsportsmanlike infraction, as per regular tournament rules. BSU will also not be allowed to participate in the next 1v1 PL.

Minimum Activity Expected of Players: Being picked for a team tournament also means we expect a minimum level of commitment to that team, regardless of whether a player is starting or not. If a manager finds that their player is not showing acceptable levels of activity, and after attempting to work things out with the player themselves, they may get in contact with the TD team about it. A player whose activity we find to be below this threshold will be infracted with Unsportsmanlike Conduct, a DQ from this edition of the Tournament in question and a ban from the next edition of this same tournament.